Conference Day

Opening video followed by introductions by Aral Balkan, a keynote by Matt Gemmell ("Unusability") and live music.

10:45 am–11:10 am

Break (25 minutes)

11:10 am–12:15 am

Jeremy Keith presents "One Web", we have another live music act, and we conclude with the Geek Ninja Battle on mobile platforms.

12:15–1:15 pm

Lunch break (1 hour)

1:15 pm–2:30 pm

We kick things off after lunch with live music and a hands-on Corona hacking session by Seb Lee-Delisle followed by keynotes by Sarah Parmenter and Relly Annett-Baker on common design challenges in mobile and "Arse over tit: the art of making stuff backwards".

2:30 pm–2:55 pm

Break (25 minutes)

2:55 pm–4:05 pm

A conversation with Ronald Wayne, the third founder of Apple, followed by keynotes by Joachim Bondo ("Going beyond delicious") and Anna Debenham ("The Digital Native").

4:05 pm–4:30 pm

Break (25 minutes)

4:30 pm–5:35 pm

Geek Ninja Battle on tools, technologies, and design challenges, followed by our last live music act of the day and the closing keynote by Cennydd Bowles ("The Things of the Future").

Experience

The Royal BanquetChampagne reception, private tour, and dinner with speakers in a majestic palace.

Kick things off in style!

The Royal Banquet pre-conference dinner takes place on 4th September at the Royal Pavilion, a palace situated in the heart of Brighton. Forty-two lucky attendees will join speakers, sponsors, and invited guests on the evening before the conference to enjoy a champagne reception in the royal kitchens, take a private tour of the Pavilion, and dine like the Windsors at a 90-person dinner in the Royal Banqueting Hall accompanied by a string quartet.

KeynotesInspiring 18-minute sessions from top names in iOS, user experience, and web.

Get inspired!

There's nothing like experiencing an energised, passionate presentation by an expert at the top of her field. Find the inspiration and motivation you crave in these power-packed 18-minute TED-style presentations by top names in mobile, web, and user experience.

Carefully curated by Aral Balkan, our keynote speakers were cherry-picked because they care deeply about what they do, are prolific contributors to the community, and wonderfully inspiring presenters.

Learn tech secrets!

As designers and developers we all have own treasure trove of tips, tricks, tools, and workflows that help us be better at what we do, make us more efficient, and maybe even add a bit of fun and delight to our days. Wouldn't you like to know what little secrets our workshop authors and instructors have in their repertoires?

Tech beats are short, five-minute presentations where you will learn about the tools, tips, and tricks that our speakers use to give themselves tech superpowers.

Debate the issues!

Geek Ninja Battles are 45-minute moderated panel debates on issues that matter to mobile designers and developers. We have two of them at this year's conference.

Which platform should I develop for?

The first Geek Ninja Battle is on platforms. Should your next app support iOS, webOS, Android, Windows Phone, web? Or several? Or maybe even all of them? What are the pros and cons of each platform?

Among others, the topics debated will include how developer-friendly the various platforms are, how easy it is for developers to monetise apps on the platform, how much of a user base the platforms have, and how they compete on user experience.

Join representatives from the various mobile platforms as they engage in a battle of wits and features. While we don't expect to have a single winner, we do expect the debate to be lively and highly enlightening.

Which tools and technologies should I use?

The second Geek Ninja Battle is on tools and technologies. Now, more than ever, designers and developers are spoiled by the sheer number of tools and technologies they can develop with. From native development tools and environments like Xcode, Objective-C, and Cocoa Touch on iOS to cross-platform technologies like Appcelerator Titanium, Corona, and Adobe Flash, to web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

With so much choice, which is the right one for your next app? Which tools and technologies are easiest to get started with, and which ones require more development effort? And does your choice of technologies effect the user experience and competitiveness of your apps?

Join community champions as they debate the merits of the myriad of tools and technologies you have at your disposal as a mobile designer and developer today.

Show & Tell StageA community stage sponsored by Monotype. Call for sessions now on.

A stage for you

The Show & Tell stage, sponsored by Monotype Imaging, is a platform for Update attendees to deliver 5-minute lightning talks during in the breaks. In addition to the community sessions, Monotype will also be presenting sessions on typography design and use in mobile and web development.

Call for sessions

Attending Update? Want your five minutes of fame at the conference?

Think of a kick-ass 5-minute talk on a mobile technology, technique, or design topic to blow our socks off (no sales pitches, no portfolio pieces).

Learn from the best!

Learn about the hottest topics, techniques, tools, and technologies from the top instructors in our industry. The hands-on, intensive, and intimate workshops at Update last from one to three whole days and really let you sink your teeth into the subject matter.

The workshops range in duration for one day to three days and take place following the conference day, on the 6th and 7th. Workshop tickets include access to the conference on the 5th.

Topics

2-Day Titanium development by Kevin Whinnery

1-Day iOS design workshop by Sarah Parmenter

2-Day OpenGL ES workshop by Jeff LaMarche

1 & 2-Day Core Data workshops by Marcus Zarra

1-Day HTML5 for mobile workshop by Remy Sharp

1-Day Core Animation workshop by Drew McCormack

Hands-on instruction

Workshops at conferences are usually more like seminars, with quality sacrificed for quantity as they pack up to 30-40 people or more into classes. Not so at Update. Unlike other conferences, we asked our instructors what class-size they would prefer and went with their recommendations.

Our workshops, like the conference itself, are intimate affairs. They're actual hands-on workshops, not seminars. Attendance is capped at around 15 people (some less, a few slightly more). This is to ensure that you get personal attention from your instructor. This also means that space at our workshops is very limited so book early to avoid disappointment.

Ronald WayneMr. Ronald Wayne, the 3rd founder of Apple, on Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, the early days of Apple, and more.

A fascinating conversation

Our special guest at Update 2011 is Mr. Ronald Wayne, one of the three founders of Apple.

Mr. Wayne, now 77, worked with Steve Jobs at Atari. In 1976, he wrote and co-signed the document that brought Apple Computer into existence. He also created the first Apple logo and wrote the manual for the Apple I computer. He received 10% of Apple Computer but relinquished his stock–worth over $30 billion today–for a total of $2,300 a few weeks later.

Aral Balkan will be interviewing Mr. Wayne about his time at Atari, about the early days of Apple with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, and about what he's been working on in his post-Apple years.

Live actsLive music, visualisations, and more from 100 Robots and other acts both during the conference and at the after-party.

Boogie!

During the conference day, the keynotes, tech beats, and Geek Ninja Battles are punctuated by live acts from various artists including a jam by 100 Robots that you will help direct with your mobile phone.

In between talks, head to the exhibition hall in the foyer and the upstairs chill-out lounge to interact with digital art installations from various artists.

After the conference, catch extended sets by the artists at the A Night at the Museum after-party.

Book your place today!

Beautiful fairytale palaces, majestic royal banquets, inspiring keynotes, engaging live acts, lively Geek Ninja Battles, and happening after-parties in prestigious museums… Update is more than just a conference, it is a tightly-scripted, beautifully hand-crafted experience. It is a mobile conference with a soul.

Speakers

Jeremy Keith‘We can either fracture the web or we can create experiences that can adapt to any device or browser.’

One Web

The range of devices accessing the web is increasing. We are faced with a choice in how we deal with this diversity. We can either fracture the web by designing a multitude of device-specific silos, or we can embrace the flexibility of the web and create experiences that can adapt to any device or browser.

Bio

Jeremy Keith is a web designer and developer with over a decade's experience of using and teaching web technologies such as JavaScript, microformats and HTML5. He has written three books, DOM Scripting and Bulletproof Ajax, and most recently, HTML5 For Web Designers. When he’s not crafting websites at Clearleft, Jeremy can usually be found ranting and raving at conferences like An Event Apart. Right now he’s very excited about responsive web design, which he feels may herald an even bigger revolution than the original web standards movement.

In his spare time, Jeremy plays bouzouki in the band Salter Cane, curates an online Irish music community called The Session and runs Huffduffer, a site for creating podcasts of found sounds. You should unfollow him on Twitter.

Arse over tit: the art of making stuff backwards.

Here you are planning your new app and dreaming of it storming to the top of the app store. Allow me then just to cut in for 18 minutes to show you why you’re going about it all back-to-front. I’m going to take your blue sky thinking and reduce it to a one-inch frame so you can focus on what you’re really making and how just a few words makes the biggest difference of all.

Bio

Relly Annett-Baker lives in a leafy market town with her husband and two small sons. As a result, she eats far too many cakes from Waitrose and can be guaranteed to stand on Lego at least once a day.

As well as being content strategist and content writer for Supernice Studio, she is employed as live-in domestic staff by two cats. She also writes articles and jabbers on about copy to anyone who will listen, creates scrapbooks, and continues to procrastinate over the draft for her book, a guide to creating web content for designers and developers, to be published in Spring 2011 by Five Simple Steps.

She better finish this biography before her editor spots she isn’t writing her book again.

Seb Lee-Delisle invites you to join in on the physics engine fun in his hands-on Corona session.

From Zero to Angry Birds in 30 minutes

In this hands-on session, Seb will show you how easy it is to make an Angry Birds clone for iOS and Android in Corona. Bring a text editor of your choice and the free Corona SDK, and prepare to play along!

Going beyond delicious

Leading software designers and developers have been stiving to create “Delicious” app for years now. And rightly so. It’s the apps the users talk about, desire and buy. But is it really the peak of what we can achieve as software creators? I say we should take it to the next level. Beyond Delicious.

Bio

Although mostly known for his award-winning chess application, Deep Green, Joachim Bondo is also a long-time Mac developer, M.Sc. of Economics and Finance, ex. stockbroker and investment banker, wrist watch aficionado, but first and foremost, master of good taste.

Cennydd Bowles‘It’s time to put people – and humanity – at the heart of business.’

The Things of the Future

Technology has, of course, changed the world – but its main power has been social, not commercial. Despite the best efforts of the industrial age, the general public now holds the cards. They can have any colour they like, including black. They can bring down newspapers, industries, and governments. They’re not going to take your shit any more.

So farewell and good riddance to “pile em high and sell em cheap”, saturation advertising, and consumption culture. It’s time to put people – and humanity – at the heart of business.

Bio

Cennydd Bowles is an interaction designer, speaker and writer based in Brighton, UK. His second book, Designing the Wider Web, will be published this winter.

Unusability

For too long, the field of user experience has preached about pandering to ordinary users - meeting their needs, empowering and even delighting them. iOS devices (and many of the apps that run on them) are often lauded as the pinnacle of user-centric design, but sociopathic developers can take heart: it's still possible to design extremely unfriendly software. Join me on an evil tour of the very best principles of user-hostile design.

Bio

Matt Gemmell is an iPad, iPhone and Mac OS X developer specialising in user experience. He runs his own business, Instinctive Code, and is an invited speaker at industry conferences.

He has written hundreds of articles on development and interface design at mattgemmell.com, and his clients include Apple and other Fortune 500 companies.

The Digital Native

The current model of teaching students using a standardised system with a single suite of software on a desktop computer is no longer justifiable. The "digital native" has access to an array of technology on various platforms, which are rarely allowed within school gates despite their relevancy and educational potential.

Network lock-downs and zealous firewalls in schools also widen the chasm between the classroom and reality. Is this condemning a generation to be purely consumers of technology rather than creators?

Bio

Anna is a freelance front-end developer based in Brighton, doing work with Mozilla on a project called Hackasaurus that builds web development learning tools for kids. She also runs a community called Scrunchup for young designers and developers.

Sarah Parmenter on common design challenges in building mobile user experiences.

Not Just a Pretty Picture

It's all too easy to get blinded by a beautiful interface design, but the real work starts long before you start layering gradients, bevels and highlights in your favourite graphics editor. Designing for iOS presents its own unique set of challenges that can easily show the rookie from the professional. In 18 minutes, Sarah will be addressing the most common challenges, through her experience as a user interface designer.

Bio

Sarah specialises in User Interface Design for iOS devices and the web, she regularly makes contributions to online web design related websites and written features to various magazines. Sarah also speaks at web design conferences around the world and is lucky to consult, and work for, many companies that we all know and love.

Sarah has also been shortlisted for the .net awards "Designer of the Year" 2011.

Workshops

Learn to make cross-platform native apps with JavaScript

The Titanium Mobile workshop will be an intensive two day training course on the fundamentals of writing native mobile applications in JavaScript.

Over the course of two days, students will be exposed to a best-practices approach to building cross-platform mobile applications with Titanium. Using an increasingly complex example application, students will learn how to leverage cross-platform and device-specific APIs to deliver a "best of breed" mobile application for both iOS and Android. Some of the topics to be covered include:

Best practices for structuring JavaScript code

How to build in device-specific features while maximizing cross-platform code reuse

How to prepare applications for distribution in the App Store or Android Market

Proper use of core APIs for user interface, Filesystem I/O, local and remote data access, media assets, location services, and more

Extra class time will be given to address questions and specific use cases as time allows. New Titanium developers will find this course a brisk and challenging quick start introduction, while experienced Titanium developers have found a great deal of benefit from examining a best-practices approach to building applications and leveraging core platform APIs. A functional Titanium development environment (Titanium Studio IDE) and beginner-level JavaScript knowledge are required to get the most out of this class.

Bio

Kevin Whinnery is an experienced web developer on both the client and server side. Prior to joining Appcelerator, Kevin has worked on a diverse set of web development projects, including a web service API for ERP software, front-end code for a mutual fund trading application, and built a student information system from the ground up in his spare time. With Appcelerator, Kevin can usually be found educating developers on the Titanium platform, or building mobile and desktop applications for one of Appcelerator's awesome clients. Kevin lives in Saint Paul, MN with his wife and three children.

Overview

Designing for iPhone and iPad is becoming a natural progression in many jobs and an expectation from employers.

The learning curve can be quite steep and many underestimate just what is involved with designing for these devices, finding themselves knee deep in a project but not knowing where to start. This workshop will conquer the unknown and is suitable for anyone who is starting out in iOS Design or expected to design for iOS Devices as part of their everyday job. By the end of the workshop day, you will be able to plan, design and prepare final documents for developers and gain a full knowledge of all the essential stages of designing for iPhone and iPad.

A basic knowledge of Photoshop will be required for the design session late morning and a flair for design a bonus, but obviously, not essential.

Overview

Core Animation underpins the user interface of virtually all iOS apps. Even if you don't use the framework directly, it forms the base upon which the view classes rest, and has consequently played a pivotal role in the success of the platform.

In this hands-on workshop, you'll learn how to leverage Core Animation in your own apps, to provide feedback to the user, and — dare we suggest — add delicious effects and other eye candy. We'll start the day learning about utilizing Core Animation via the UIView class, before moving on to more advanced usage and the CALayer class. Numerous types of animations will be covered, from basic translations and rotations, to dissolves and advanced transforms. Techniques for producing sequences of animations will be discussed, and you'll even learn how to apply and animate Core Image filters.

In-depth

This one-day workshop will be very hands on, with the aim of imparting skills that you can take away and start using in your own software straight away. You will need to bring a laptop with Xcode installed, so that you can complete the exercises, and build and run examples.

The workshop will be based around a single, deceptively simple example: bouncing a ball. In the real world, bouncing a ball poses little challenge to most of us, but — as will become apparent as the day progresses — bouncing a virtual ball with Core Animation can be as simple or complex as you want to make it. Riffing on this one example will introduce all of the skills you need to incorporate Core Animation effectively in your own iOS apps.

Here is an outline of the day's sessions:

What is Core Animation, and what is it good for?
Introduction to the framework, explaining what it is good for, and — just as importantly — what it is not good for.

UIView Animations.
How you use class methods in UIView to access basic features of Core Animation. We'll start bouncing the ball, but only in very basic ways. We'll also look at how timing is controlled in Core Animation, and how you can combine animations to make animated sequences.

CALayer: The Unsung Hero.
Digging down into the Core Animation framework itself, we'll meet CALayer, the class upon which everything depends. You'll learn how to put content into your layers using Quartz drawing, or an existing image.

Implicit Animations.
You get a lot for free with Core Animation. Often you don't need to write any code at all to produce great animations. In this section, you'll learn how that works, and how you can set default animations for your layers which are triggered by events.

Explicit Animations.
Sometimes you can't leave it to chance: you need to get down and dirty, and build your animations up by hand. In this session you'll be introduced to explicit animations, and the two most important animation classes: CABasicAnimation and CAKeyframeAnimation. We'll start to bounce the ball in more creative ways, including accounting for inelasticity to improve realism.

Transforms.
You can apply advanced mathematical transforms to layers to create interesting effects. Translate, rotate, scale, skew, and everything in between. What's more, transforms are fully animatable. We'll use some of these transforms to add more physical effects to the ball, squashing it on impact, and introducing spin and wobble.

Other Layer Classes and Effects.
In this session, we'll look at some of the more obscure aspects of Core Animation. Layer classes to create gradients, shapes, and even particle effects. We'll also learn how to apply and animate Core Image filters. Your balls will never look the same again.

Introduction to Core Data (6th Sept)

This is a full day workshop on Core Data. In this session we will start at the beginning of Core Data and work very quickly up to the daily usage of Core Data. What do we use most often and how? What do all of the bits do?

Some things we will be discussing:

Creating a Core Data Stack

Creating managed objects

Finding existing managed objects

Versioning the data model

This will be a workshop format so there will be exercises and one on one opportunities as well as open periods where the class decides what direction the tutorials will take.

Advanced Core Data Workshop (7th Sept)

This is a full day workshop on Core Data. In this session we will be taking a deeper dive into Core Data and all of the sharper edges. This workshop will assume you have a working knowledge of the fundamentals of Core Data.

Some things we will be discussing:

Threading, threading, threading

Importing and exporting

Performant Searching

Edge case migrations

Real world horror stories and solutions

This will be a workshop format so there will be exercises and one on one opportunities as well as open periods where the class decides what direction the tutorials will take.

Take both workshops

Get started in Core Data and go beyond the basics by taking both classes together as a two-day workshop.